2011 was my first year of trying to combine coaching and writing and living more fully in the present. So, I’ve set aside the month of December for reflection and planning. “Ready Fire, Aim” was advice from a Tom Peters book that I read many years ago that urged managers not to delay action until their plan was perfect. I’ve always felt that we gain confidence and learn an awful lot from taking action that can feedback into our plans. I’ve seen again and again how planning too long without acting can cause a kind of planning paralysis that can actually prevent us from living our dreams (isn’t there always more we should learn first?).

I did jump into both coaching and writing this year. People I coached discovered new career paths, could articulate their transferable skills with new confidence and enthusiasm, got new jobs and found satisfying outlets for their creativity. I wrote enough to feel like I have the base of a portfolio. I completed a few short products, started a bunch of new formats like personal essays, entered contests and actually sent query letters to publications I’d like to have relationships with. I’m no longer talking about writing–I’m doing the work a writer does! Through jumping in, I’ve discovered some of the things I’ve learned about coaching will make my writing stronger and some of the creativity strategies I’ve learned through writing foster out-of-the-box thinking in coaching relationships.

If one of my goals for my change focus life is living fully in the present, I have a ways to go. I can see that I need to shut down the “shoulds” more often, allowing myself to “be”. (Who said we are “human beings” not “human doings”?) Important to remind myself that I didn’t change focus in my own life just to be as harried as I was before. This is surely my tendency–one I need to guard against. But looking at the year as a whole, I’ve made progress. We did make 4 trips to see the grandchildren and had 2 weeks of vacation, one week with the family and one on our own. We made time for lunches with friends and planning the re-landscaping of the yard. All of those have been joyous opportunities to seize “right here, right now” and squeeze it hard.

Maybe our landscaping project is the best symbol of this year–by year’s end the hardscaping was done, the ground was turned over, the new plantings were in. Trees, shrubs and flowers were all dormant, so we’ll need to wait to see how they all come to blossom. We may need to add some annuals to the bare spots, may even need to transplant some new residents that don’t do well where we’ve placed them, but there’s an outline, a direction that’s clear, even if the implementation isn’t perfect. It combines dreams and visions with the good feel of earth in our hands and it’s always a work in progress.

What plans for change are you making for the new year?

What experiences have you had of”ready, fire, aim”?

Have you ever experienced planning paralysis? What has it kept you from doing?

I just came back from visiting my daughter in Texas and I want to share a career “aha” she taught me during this visit. Since the birth of her twins 2 years ago, Sarah hasn’t worked outside the home. After a decade in retail sales, four years of which she excelled as the manager of a large cosmetics counter, she knew she needed to do something, but daycare for 2 infants wasn’t a cost she could take on. Last year, she became a mompreneur and began selling Discovery Toys and Scensey. After a year, she isn’t where she wants to be in terms of profit. Sarah’s pretty practical and so she had establishedsome goals for herself, analyzed what the real costs of the business were, and decided it wasn’t just the growing pains of a new business that were holding her back. She projected the sales increase she’d need to make her financial goal and determined it was time for a change. When she told me this, I was pretty skeptical. I thought she should give it more time.

“Now,” she told me, “I realize how the financial structure of the business impacts my ability to earn. I didn’t know what the ins and outs were then. I do now.” She took that confidence and her experience in selling cosmetics and is now an Arbonne consultant. She held her first 2 parties at her home while I was visiting and sales seem to be going great guns.

sometimes you just know when it’s time to move forward. My “aha” was the realization that in those situations, when you’re being led by heart or Spirit, cautiously taking it slow isn’t a virtue–it just saps your energy and blunts your resolve. Changing gears in our careers takes energy and boldness. We need to capitalize on those moments of clarity and inspiration when we experience them and use them to propel us from dissatisfaction to joy!

This doesn’t mean quitting our jobs today and becoming Marco Polo. It does mean we need to stop contemplating and take a step – any step that our hearts tells us is right – toward something we’re dreaming about. That step can be in any direction–right or wrong, we’ll learn something about making the dream come true.

Wow! It’s been an amazingly busy week, but I promised the folks who attended my workshop I’d get to these tips before the week was out– and it’s out! These are self-evident, but not the first things folks think about when they start their search for a wonderful new career– or a wonderful new volunteer position — that will give them the sense of creative fulfillment and soul-satisfying purpose that eludes so many of us.

For each one, I’ll explain a bit about the step and suggest an action step you can take. Practically, the action steps take time, so I’ll do 3 now and 4 more later.

1. Know your passion and what you have you offer

Notice this doesn’t start with “see what’s available, and settle for the least disagreeable alternative.” Even in this crazy, terrible economy, there are opportunities, but there are fewer good ones if we wait for others to define them for us. When someone posts a want ad, they’ve already narrowed our possibilities. If we know both what we are excited and passionate about doing– what we would even do for free, if someone would just let us, our energy and enthusiasm and fire can be very persuasive. If we add to that a real confidence in our skills and what we have to offer, based on a proven track record, we become pretty desirable. (More about that when we get to #7.)

To start, we need to assess specifically what we want and what our skills and knowledge bases are. This assessment gives us the ability to be articulate, flexible and elegant in how we market ourselves

Action: Take some time to fully assess yourself. Write down your accomplishments and specifically what you did to be successful. Brainstorm your skills. Look eyond the roles you’ve played at work. Take in all of your life’s accomplishments. Ask friends and colleagues what they think your skills are. Let that fire inside ignite! Use that excitement to energize your search and help you be more proactive in finding the opportunities that promise more “AHH” than “BLAH”

2. Talk to people who are doing what you want to do.

We tend to keep these dreams to ourselves and this doesn’t serve us well. One of the first steps to finding ways to “road test” your dream is to ask people who are doing what you’d like to do how they got there — and what the real ups and downs of it are. If you could sit down with someone who epitomizes what you want to do, and you had 20 minutes to pick their brain, with no pride, no ego, no defensiveness or competition to concern you, what would you like to know? This makes many of us cringe, I know! It exposes our tender dream to potential ridicule. It points out that we’re not in the club yet. We imagine that the insiders will jealously guard the real story to prevent us from competing with them. But the secret is, most folks are amazingly generous when asked to provide information and perspective! If they love what they do, they love to talk about it. Most truly smart people know that their fields need to encourage new professionals and they’re flattered to be asked.

Action: Once you have 3-6 good, meaty questions, figure out who in your city or town does work close to your dream work, and call and ask for a few minutes of their time. It can be an in-person interview or over the phone. Make it clear that you’re doing some research and that you’re looking for information. This is not a sneaky way to get a job interview– you need to focus on people doing the work you want to do–not necessarily the executives who make hiring decisions. Make sure you talk to at least 3-5 people who do some version of your dream position in different arenas or settings, so you get a wide perspective.

3. Find a way to “test drive” your skills in the environment you want to work in

This might be volunteering, or interning or doing temp work, but it’s really helpful to have some real work experience– either using your strong suit skills in an new field or using new skills ina familiar environment — before you start your search in earnest.

Action: This might be one of your informational interview questions for #2! It’s also helpful to talk to lots of peopple–friends, family, colleagues– and let them know you’re looking for the opportunity to test out your interest in a particular field or organization. Say it more than once, Practice saying it clearly and concisely and specifically ask them if they have any suggestions of who you might talk to or where you might look for these opportunities.

What’s the biggest challenge in taking these 3 actions? What keeps you from finding your perfect niche?